Darkling
by Hautuumaa
Summary: A young goblin often goes down to Dimrill Dale to do silly things alone and with her brother. This time an unexpected visitor lurks in the night. The brighter the stars in Mirrormere, the dimmer become the wits.


Here's another separate scene where I use characters from my longer story. It's nice if it also works as an independent story, but it does have more references than my other one-shots.

* * *

The sun had already gone into hiding behind the mountains, when Grishtakh and his sister Skaigath sneaked out of theirs for an excursion in the valley that was falling silent in its shadow. There were still lingering sunbeams streaming down the western peaks of the mountain range, and for a moment Grishtakh watched them thoughtfully. The peaks all had names too, in many languages in fact, but he remembered exactly none of them, not even the ones in his own. And why should he, when he never had any reason to venture so high up? With that thought the mountains themselves slipped out of his mind, and his often restless gaze locked momentarily on the sunrays that clung to the falling darkness. Grishtakh hadn't been outside in daylight that many times during his short life, and the fiery disc had yet to burn the fear of light into his ever wandering mind. On some level he understood that he was playing with fire, but he was so possessed with eagerness to see if it really burned as badly as the older Orcs said...

Having spent enough time gawking at the light's fading in the heights, he finally remembered that he had come outside with Skaigath. His sister stood nearby with her hands on her hips, watching the darkening valley. There weren't a lot of those who tolerated Grishtakh's lingerings this patiently, but as the realisation of this fact had not yet managed to penetrate his skull, he didn't think to feel any particular gratitude for his sister's consideration.

"I wonder why they're not sending us to war together?" he asked, also giving the valley a glance.

His sister stood a moment in silence, scratching her ear with great concentration. "Our high and mighty warlords must make their decisions drunk out of their skulls," she finally replied with a shrug. "Not too drunk these days, mind, now that old Bêrt went and blew up sky high with his shoddy still."

Grishtakh vaguely felt like moping. "Now I miss his booze all of a sudden."

"You can say that again. They know how to make it in Dunland." Skaigath patted her brother's shoulder. "But we're off to the valley one more time now, aren't we? There might even be Dwarves down there."

Immediately Grishtakh forgot his bad mood and grinned. He had never seen a living Dwarf yet, but something about the old enemies of the goblin-folk fascinated him. There had long been so much bad blood between the goblins of Moria and the Dwarves that were trying to get Moria back - that was before the siblings' time, though - that no visitors ever really entered the valley, or at least not without an army to escort them. Truth be spoken, that was actually a fairly good thing. Both siblings were decent at using bow and knives, but they could by no means offer a challenge to fury-filled Dwarves. Grishtakh rarely thought things through to that extent, but Skaigath was a tad sharper in the head, and she would never have let her emptyheaded brother get himself killed with his mindless Dwarf-cravings. However, in this situation, roaming the valley was a fun little hobby to them.

"I hear that stars are always reflected in the pond, even in bright daylight," hollered Grishtakh, pointing down at the valley with his finger, "but one can't see oneself in it!"

"Who says so?"

"Ghâshsag."

Skaigath glanced at her brother. "But Ghâshsag crawls all day in the tunnels looking for the spirit of fire."

"Yes, but he heard it from Sharrásh, and the old geezer has been everywhere."

"Well, in that case," Skaigath agreed. "Let's go down there in daylight when you come back."

Grishtakh managed to stay verbally quiet for a moment, but he made quite a racket as he stomped his way down the hill. All his steps were preceded by pebbles he had earlier kicked into motion. "You'll be coming back too, won't you?" he finally asked when holding his tongue got impossible for him.

"I wouldn't suggest this if I wasn't," Skaigath reassured him. "Yes, we'll go the Dwarf puddle together once the war is over and done. Now that must be a fun sight. A mirror you can't see yourself in!"

"Not even at night, I hear," reminisced Grishtakh.

"Nighttime isn't the best time to go peeking into dark waters, at any rate."

"No?"

"There are worse things than us walking in the night," chuckled Skaigath. "Although you'd be hard pushed to find one worse than me. I'm such a beast of Morgoth, I am."

"Well you certainly are that, I remember last week when..."

Skaigath administered a light slap to the back of Grishtakh's head. "Don't you start that again! Dwell on the past, get a splinter in the brown eye."

Grishtakh gave his sister an incredulous glance. "You mean just in the eye."

"Oh, is that how it went? It would certainly be worse in the head-eye, I admit." Skaigath leapt over a tree trunk rotting on the slope even though she could have spared her effort. "Does Sauron dwell on the past a lot, what do you think?"

Grishtakh leapt after her. "I suppose he does, since he's going to war and all. Imagine the size of the splinter you'd need for that eye."

"And there you see that it's not good to cling to the past," Skaigath said, using her powers of hindsight on the Dark Lord's behalf well in advance before the end result of the war was known. She abruptly stopped walking down the slope and had to fight against falling over as Grishtakh bumped into her. Her nostrils twitched, and her gaze swept over the by now completely dark valley. "You do like strange things, don't you," she mused after a moment of watching her surroundings. "What would you do if you really saw a Dwarf? I don't think they'd make much of a meal."

"I'd probably just admire his beard," Grishtakh answered without a twitch of hesitation. "It's nicer to just watch short and hairy things than it is to eat them. I wish I had a beard, too."

Skaigath gave a throaty, mucous cackle. "That's right, a goblin is a bit like a cockroach, but a Dwarf is more like a rat."

Grishtakh bestowed a loving look upon his sister. "I can talk about anything to you, Skaigath. You understand everything, you do."

Skaigath lay a hand on her brother's shoulder with a deep sigh. "It's such a screaming shame that we're getting separated now. I'm not happy to let you go prance alone out in the world, what with you being such a goofy bugger and all."

"It's a pity that I'm a bugger," Grishtakh agreed.

Another deep sigh left Skaigath. A cool wind blew across the slope, and her nostrils twitched again. "Isn't Ghâshsag leaving with the same group as you, though? He too's so goofy that you two could get along much better than you do."

"Ghâshsag is _weird_."

"Well, we'll see." The siblings had not made it very far yet, and far below Skaigath could see stars in the depths of Mirrormere. She had seen enough. "How about we do something else after all, now that it's the last night? We've seen quite enough of this valley before, after all."

After a moment of watching the look on Skaigath's face, Grishtakh managed to understand that his sister was serious about this, and also really rather solemn. "Yes, let's," he agreed eagerly and would have followed like a good boy even if Skaigath had immediately let go of his shoulder. She didn't do so until much later, once they had already climbed a good length of their journey back up, and by that point Grishtakh's squirrel brain had already blissfully forgotten his sister's sudden seriousness. He glanced behind one last time before crawling into Moria, but to him the sacred black water of Kheled-zâram showed itself as nothing more than a dark puddle in the distance, and soon enough he forgot that, too.

By next night, Grishtakh had already gone with his new fellow warriors. As a result, all of Moria seemed to have fallen silent - not because his departure had caused any particular grief, but because he just was a young goblin that happened to be rather on the loud side. The only one who missed him, Skaigath, cast restless looks at the war party marching into the night every time she could take her eyes off the slope she was descending. She hoped that the night would accompany her brother for long now that she herself could not. Finally she had to tear her eyes off the distance once and for all, and she made her way for the depths of the valley. Down there darkness fell fast, which would surely prove useful if her nose had been right last night. The grass was softer deeper in the valley, and it was easier to move silently. All of a sudden, Skaigath stopped in her tracks and stared at the sight before her.

The gates of Moria had indeed been approached by a lone Dwarf who now stared, full of hatred, at the war party that was barely visible to his light-defiled eyes. To think that a Dwarf's smell was so strong that the goblin had managed to recognise it based on a whiff she had once felt on some ancient object in Moria. To think also that a Dwarf had truly come alone down here to eyeball the goblins! He _was_ accompanied by some axes, though, so Skaigath sneaked as close as possible under cover of darkness and swiftly climbed the closest spruce with the sparsest branches. The spruce was an extremely annoying tree to her and to anyone who knew anything about climbing trees: not much sturdier than the local birches, but many times pricklier. Skaigath took a brief moment to congratulate herself for making her way up without too much noise, and watched the Dwarf carefully for some time.

After picking a good spot, she put a small arrow into a narrow pipe, put the pipe on her lips, aimed and blew. The arrow flew like a wasp's sting, and felt like one too judging by the Dwarf's reaction. The Dwarf barked something that sounded really quite cross in his own tongue and then slapped his hand on his mouth, glancing wildly at his surroundings. When he felt his neck and there found the arrow, he stopped being cautious and let loose a torrent of words that was clearly made up of foul oaths. Eventually he switched his language to the Westron that Skaigath too understood.

"You come out here and fight like a Dwarf, you crawling tunnel-worm! Cockroach! Rat!"

Such an eruption of emotion only amused Skaigath. Apparently Mister Dwarf had something against worms, cockroaches and rats. How picky some people were! She was pleased to watch the Dwarf as he ran around, delirious with rage, from tree to tree and kicked their trunks. He even did so to the considerably barer birches that clearly had no one sitting in them. Finally Skaigath shot another arrow into the Dwarf, at which point he was able to deduce the correct tree based on the direction the arrow had come from.

"Down, you snake that crawls in the trees! Leech!" he roared at the base of the spruce, brandishing his axe. "Down, ere I chop down your perch!"

"I thought you Dwarves liked trees?" enquired Skaigath.

"It's Elves that like trees!" the Dwarf exploded with even more outrage and took a swing at the trunk with his axe.

"It's good of you to rampage like that," Skaigath noted. "That way the poison will spread that much faster."

For a moment it was as though sheer rage had burned the sleep-poison from the Dwarf's blood, but then he suddenly became aware of his condition and finally swayed for the first time. "Cowardly goblin, come down here and take this axe in your ugly skull," he tried one last time.

"I certainly won't," jeered Skaigath. "Tell me, Master Dwarf, what might your name be, if I may ask?"

"That's not something I'll tell the Enemy's underling!"

"Well, we'll have plenty of time to learn to know each other," Skaigath consoled herself, blowing one more arrow from the darkness of the branches. "Now tell me, Master, was it wise to come to the gates of Moria without a bow?"

"The bow is a coward's weapon," declared the Dwarf, sounding quite certain of his stance, "and because of my blood I have the absolute right to the gates and realm of Khazad-dûm!"

"I see... is that so?"

"So it is! You mountain-goblins have no right to the halls of our fathers!"

Skaigath nodded. "That's as may be, but many of us were born here too and know no other place. It's a tough situation, mate." She raised her hand and gestured at the lower slopes. "By the way, it's not the first time a lone Dwarf gets himself shot in this valley. I hear the last one tried to take Moria too, though he came with a larger party." Seeing the angered look on the Dwarf's face, Skaigath made an attempt to calm him down a little; by no means did she intend for a vein to burst in the man's head or anything of the sort. "That was long before my time, mind, so it's not me that did it."

"Well that's a great comfort! Here those of your ilk make filthy bat-nests in our honourable mines and desecrate our beautiful halls," the Dwarf raged, by now almost in tears. It made sense to Skaigath that he was mentally unstable; surely he would not have come here alone if he wasn't. He finally dropped into a sitting position, subdued by the poison. "Surely you even pass your water in our sacred lake. When, O when will Durin's line have justice and fairness?"

Skaigath shrugged and began to climb down. "To that I can say nothing. I can, however, tell you that tonight you return to Moria."

The Dwarf panted awhile, trying to overcome his shock. "Come again?"

"You'll come with me and stay there until my only brother returns from the war." Skaigath jumped down to the ground, but stayed outside the axe's range to be on the safe side. She supposed if the Dwarf had intended to throw it, he would have done so back when he was able to move better. "My brother's got quite a craving for Dwarves, so it'll be a nice surprise for him, and I'll be more cheerful too while I wait for it."

"Will you keep me for your brother like a swine awaiting slaughter?" the Dwarf gasped, temporarily renewed by this stunning bit of news. "How dare you?"

"Who dares, wins," said Skaigath. "But you won't end up as food, you'll... well, I don't know what, to tell the truth. In any case, you'll get to wait in the halls of your fathers. That's not too bad, is it, having several fathers. I have none!" The Dwarf fell down on his back, breathing heavily, and the goblin suddenly threw her hand on her mouth. She was a tad sharper in the head than Grishtakh, true, but not by much. "I must say I've no idea how I'm supposed to drag you up there. I brought some string with me, but you actually look rather heavy."

"Dimwitted goblin-spawn," the Dwarf groaned with the last of his strength, bemoaning his cruel fate.

"Your own wits can't be that quick either, since you attack Moria alone," Skaigath pointed out despite not being sure that the Dwarf could actually still hear her. Soon snoring began to issue forth from his bearded mouth, suggesting that he probably hadn't. After a moment Skaigath also remembered the fact that she too might be sent off to war, and who would then look after the Dwarf for her? "Maybe we should eat him after all." She scratched her head, bewildered by her own senseless decisions. She couldn't very well go and get some help, as wiser goblins would only box her ears. She then turned her eyes to the east, where her dear brother continued his journey out of her sight, and thought about the joy he would feel if her plan worked out.

With a laugh, Skaigath took out her string and strung it under the Dwarf's armpits. "Ah well, a dim mind causes suffering to the entire body." The hill looked very steep. "On such a long way up _your_ body will suffer too, but..." She swallowed her words, sighed, and finally simply started to pull instead of blathering. It was a lucky thing that the night had only just begun.


End file.
